When Will My Poem Be Finished? How Will I Know?
Sometimes, I think writing poetry is both a blessing and a curse. Only poets would spend hours wrestling over a word or a supposedly simple sentence. We must be crazy. After agonizing for days, weeks, maybe even months, are we satisfied? No, because we’re not sure we’re finished. We’re not even sure that the poems we get published are […]
1913: The Year Before the Storm
Friends who give you great books are priceless. I have savored and just completed 1913: The Year Before the Storm, by Florian Illies. Sadly, my German language skills are nil, but I read an excellent translation, thanks to the skills of Shaun Whiteside and Jamie Lee Searle. This amazing book offers a month-by-month description of selected […]
Writing Practices
Finding a writing practice can be a challenge for all sorts of reasons. Many of us have full-time jobs, families, other responsibilities that have nothing to do with writing. Sometimes, if our full-time jobs involve writing, we come home “written out” and find it hard to write some more. Some of us are intimidated by […]
Back in the Land of the Living
I may have been on hiatus for six weeks, but, happily, it’s been for a good cause—writing. I spent the first part of the year preparing extensively for the visit of Jeffrey Levine, founder of Tupelo Press, poet extraordinaire, and mentor to many of us. Jeffrey offers experiences (workshop, conference, other words don’t justice to the process he […]
Coming Up for Air
Just as everything else goes crazy at the holidays, so does writing and everything connected to it—or so I’ve found. I’ve always been determined to write every day or, at least, six days out of seven. Preparation for the holidays usually means I write less, but I still chug out something every day, good or bad. […]